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Vertigo: Riccardo Formosa's composition technique.

Riccardo Formosa has been identified as being an important and widely recognised young Australian composer. Formosa's possession of a sophisticated composition technique is central to his approach to composition and to his reputation among contemporary composers.
Vertigo: Riccardo Formosa's Composition Technique aims to define the composition technique employed by Formosa. It does so by analysing the works from a number of clearly defined perspectives.
The study proceeds firstly through a description of the works as a whole and their relationship to the composer’s personal history. Secondly, the note-to-note operations Formosa has employed are reassembled through a detailed examination of the scores. Thirdly, an assessment is made of the function of the various techniques within the musical texture. Lastly, a number of comparisons are made between Formosa’s work and the work of his compositional models.
The study concludes that Formosa’s works show evidence of a composition technique operating effectively on different levels. The note-to-note processes, simple in themselves, are multiplied to form a complex counterpoint. On both the note-to-note level and the relationship between larger sections of the works, the controlling factor was found to be one of ‘binary expression’ in the form of symmetry or complementarity, a compositional aesthetic also held by Formosa's teacher. Franco Donatoni.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217159
Date January 1994
CreatorsBarkl, Michael Laurence Gordon, mikewood@deakin.edu.au
PublisherDeakin University.
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Rightshttp://www.deakin.edu.au/disclaimer.html), Copyright Michael Laurence Gordon Barkl

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